Well – the lesson I learnt this morning is never, ever tell the truth.

EVER.

Yesterday, I thought it would be a bright idea to try and give Sgt. Burpee the shit sandwich of good-bad-good with “I danced last night but my eating has been bad but I bought a treadmill so it’s all ok”.

How you think that went down?

Why was I so stupid?! This is the man who yells at me for drinking an OJ!

While I was busy dying, I was threatened with “If you’re not on this wall in the next 5 seconds, I’ll be adding an extra 10 burpees”.

You can bet I was on that was with a very long face.

But wait, there’s more!

On the rower for 500m keeping the speed under 2m20s and straight into a 1 minute plank with a foot on my back.

Then I was allowed to get a drink of water.

When I wondered back, thinking it might be time for some upper body..No! Sgt was next to the stepper and said 200 steps at 150 resistance, no arms on the bars. Then 30 squat jumps and another plank and you’re done.

This is the point when I started to cry – I asked for another 1 minute rest break and was denied.

Fortunately, it must have made Sgt uncomfortable enough to take some pity on me.

He said “You start now, 20 squat jumps and I’ll drop the plank”.

I sniffed and blinked my way through the 20.

How embarrassing.

I then got lectured on wanting to lose weight and then sabotaging myself. It was going to be much harder without a trainer so why would I do it now when I have support?

He was right.

Well, only because he found out what I ate (and I suspect that 700g I put on wasn’t pure muscle).

Moral of the story kiddies? a) do what your trainer tells you or b) make sure he never finds out what you did wrong.

Now this is something I discovered during my time in China (yes, for all new players, I lived in China for 3 years). They were all convinced that if you sat down while the seat was still warm you would get cootees or bum germs or something. Apparently, if you wave your hand at it for 10 seconds, it scares the germs away and you’ll be safe.

Urgh! So annoying.

Not that it really affects me. She can stand waving her seat for all eternity for all I care. Doesn’t make my relaxation any less comfortable.

I just hate things that are completely illogical.

If anyone can shed an ounce of proof that fanning a luke-warm train seat (or any seat for that matter) rids it of cootees, I will eat my hat.. or some extra pizza… or maybe that gelato that’s calling my name…….

NO!

Sit down and take you butt germs quietly and without complaint like the rest of us!

For those of you who know me well know that I enjoy a few every now and again (those of you know know me really well know that’s the world’s biggest understatement!).

I also know the damaging effects alcohol can have on your mind and your body – not to mention your waistline!

Inspired by a good friend of mine in Perth who did this challenge ‘just because he wanted to see if he could do it’, I thought I would take it one step further and go sober for a year, with the added benefit of raising money/awareness for a nominated charity.

Sounds crazy, right?

Feels impossible.

But if I have a worthy goal in sight and sheer determination on my side. I reckon I can.

Who said you need alcohol to have a good time?

Anyway, I’ll keep you updated on the progess of my 2012 challenge… like I was going to start before Christmas… Sheesh!

In other news, 3 sessions left with Sgt Burpee. I’m really struggling. Dragging my sorry ass out of bed in the mornings is tough, eating those salady type foods is non existant even tougher.

I’m in the battle between buying a treadmill/elliptical or joining the gym.

Would you believe after yesterdays post, I had a client who’d withdrawn come back and reapply for the job. Not complaining, right? I left the office on a cloud and floated all the way to the pub.

Yes, I know that I’ve got my final weigh in tomorrow but the call of cider and parma was too strong and my legs (and willpower) were too weak.

Naturally, I also had to polish off that KitKat when I got home – it looked lonely, I swear!

It was a tough night, a close friend of mine is suffering from depression and my heart goes out to her. I was so sad that all I could be was a voice over the phone and not a physical shoulder to cry on. Even just to give her a hug would have made such a difference.

I kept chanting the mantra, “just breathe”. I believe that when you’re feeling so out of control and like you’re drowing in a whirlpool of emotion, if you can just get your breathing under control, you have something.

From there you can start to move on to other things. Baby steps.

Anyway, this morning I get an sms around 6am from Sgt. Burpee saying he’d slept through his alarm and my session had been cancelled could we reschedule to 7:30am instead? After Sr. B and my sleepless night, it was quite welcome to get an extra 20 mins of snuggles and dozing (p.s snuggles is not a metaphor for something else!).

The good news is I’m having a ‘skinny day’ today! 🙂 For the first time, I’m in a reasonably fitted skirt and I feel like I actually have a waist, like, a smaller one than before! This is particularly good seeing as tomorrow is D-day and I should be still rounded out from cider and parma…

Bad news is today’s workout was horrible! Sgt. Burpee definately put his name to good use.

There was a boxing drill from hell:

100 x overhead punches – 5 x burpees

80 x overhead punches – 5 x burpees

60 x ov…. well you get the idea. And this was the last 5 minutes of my workout that was completely focused on upper body.

Can you even imagine how much I wanted to die and/or kill Sgt. B?!

And the icing is, everyone at work giggles when I walk in the office looking like a nuclear beetroot.

Wish me luck for tomorrow, I know I’m going to need it!

p.s Sr. B said I was a little TMI yesterday with my ‘moustache’ comments so I apologise if I offended, please let me know if you need Visine posted out to you for your seared eyeballs (ew).

Sore bum, throat, quads, biceps… the throat isn’t from the gym, just in case you were wondering…

Feeling really inadequate to do my job, then getting praise from assignment feedback, candidates withdrawing, new ones ringing. OMG. I need a drink!

Perhaps need is not the word – desperately want to drown myself in a bath of butterscotch schnapps… and melted cheese… mmm, cheese…

Weigh in on Friday.

There’s even a caramel chunky KitKat sitting in my fridge…

I found a new waxer today. I was going to Ella Bache and paying way too much for a lop-sided bikini wax leaving me looking a little more “Movember” than I should be…

Let’s hope this new one is better, they’re supposed to be specialists for it so I figure I might as well give it a try because there’s nothing worse than having a hairy lip.

Speaking of, it’s the last day of Movember today:

1. Sr. B is very excited about getting rid of his itchy, 70’s porn star mo’.

2. There’s a mo-party celebration thing on tonight at Luna Park but apparently thunderstorms and heavy rain are due in the next hour or so, so I’m not sure if being soggy and sober outdoors tonight is what I’m really looking for.

You know what? Even my Jonathan Cainer horoscope today was pretty ambiguous – I live by that guys predictions.

My poor, poor muscles cushioned by fat are trembling. This is what happens when I decide to ‘call in sick’ for the training session on Friday. I know, judge me.

I’m also told by Sgt. Burpee that today is my 9 week anniversary and it’s time to weigh in and take my measurements.

Did you see my jaw drop and eyes bulge out of their sockets?

I think in order to explain the horrified look on my face, I need to explain what I got up to on the weekend…

So after the nacho fiasco with my girlfriend on thursday night and bad, bad lunch on Friday I actually didn’t do too badly for dinner. Sweet & Sour Beef Stirfry.

Saturday morning I thought I would celebrate my good dinner with a chicken burger for breakfast (with fries on the side, of course) from the ever delicious, Post Cafe.

Suddenly I wasn’t feeling so good – even my poor stomach struggled eating so much food that early in the morning.

I needed a nap, that would fix everything!

When I woke, Snr. B wanted lunch – I was still full.

I decided that we should venture to the shops and I wanted to try my hand at making Turkish Pide.

Not that I ever cook but I had a hankering for it and I suspected Sr. B wouldn’t be keen on hitting up the local Turkish again so soon.

I was looking very um, 50’s housewife in my velcro curlers and nightie dress kneading dough in the kitchen. Sr. B thought it was hilarous and took photos while I glared at him.

While waiting for the dough to rise, we got peckish. So I brought out some stinky cheeses, olives, pate and grapes for us to snack on along with various kinds of chips. I accompanied this ‘light snack’ with gin and ruby red grapefruit juice…and a couple of ciders… (highly recommend the winter cider from Rekorderlig)

After demolishing that and feeling slightly tipsy – I sorted out those bad boy pides. I stuffed them with cajun chicken, mushrooms, basil pesto fetta, spinach and lots of cheese. Then off they went to think about what they’d done in the oven.

Oh the smell!!! *insert drooling here*

We managed to contain ourselves to sharing 1 of the 2 enourmous pides as I was keen to eat the rest when I got home from our outing save the other one for tomorrow.

We headed out to a friends for a few drinks. No pide was had on our return home – it was lights out!

Sunday morning. I wake up and squint around the sunshine coming in.

My phone had died so I reached over to Sr. B’s to check the time as I knew he had to go to a photography workshop in town at 9am (which I’d graciously bought him for his birthday).

9:04

I think Sr. B got out of the house as fast as possible due to the amount of steam coming from my ears.

Long story short, he made it on time as they started late. I consoled myself with a caramel slice and polished off the remaining pide (sharing the bum of it with the rat) and watched reruns of Seinfeld.

This wasn’t enough so for lunch we went to our favourite local Vietnamese place for ricepaper rolls, spring rolls and some awesome tempura squid (delicious but not the same without chilli). While we were in the area, we spotted a young girl walking down the street with a slurpee. Neither of us had drank one of those in at least 10 years! Sr. B said apparently 7-11 was doing a promo with all these cool flavours.

Needless to say we were walking down the street, 5 minutes later, happier than pigs in shit with icey sugarfests.

You think that’s it? Not even close!

My Sunday night cravings got the better of me and I made the decision that pasta and garlic bread was on the menu. Not just any pasta, tortellini boscaiola and beef lasagna (the 2 healthiest choices, of course) without chilli. 😦

I inhaled it.

So, cutting back to having my final measurements and weight taken today? I don’t think so!

When I was quizzed by Sgt. Burpee about what I’d been up to and how good my eating had been. I lied though my teeth saying there was a lot of Vietnamese (partially true) soup but I’d had it without the noodles, just broth as I didn’t have much appetite. I’d spent most of the weekend in bed (also partially true) and didn’t have any alcohol (well…).